In common with most development models in underdeveloped
countries since their political independence, those of African
countries have usually been inspired by a global development
strategy based on the theory of the international specialization
of labour and comparative advantage. According to this strategy,
underdeveloped countries' interest lies in exporting to
industrialized countries those factors of production that they
possess in abundance, particularly agricultural, mineral and
energy raw materials. This will enable them to obtain foreign
exchange that, in turn will enable them to buy capital goods for
their industrialization.

Twenty-five years after political independence this
development strategy has proved to be disappointing for most
African countries.1 The Ivory Coast is, however, one
of the rare exceptions. Numerous factors explain the relative
success of the economic experience, and the development model, of
the Ivory Coast. First, although possessing few mineral
resources,2 the Ivory Coast is favourably endowed with
varied natural conditions that enable agriculture to serve as
'the basis and the motor' of its economic and social development.
Secondly, the Ivorian development model is a liberal one, widely
open to the outside world and 'regulated' by a presidential
single-party system, with flexible planning and a major role for
the state. This development model which. 'without being socialist
seeks to realize a very bold social policy' aspires in the long
run to establish a 'popular capitalism'.3

Finally, not only has this model rested on the intensive
exploitation and export of the raw products of cash-crop
agriculture but also it has sought, with some success' to
establish relations between agriculture and industry, through an
industrialization strategy based on agro-industry in general and
the agricultural foodstuffs industry in particular.

This study is divided into two parts: 1) the role of
agriculture in Ivorian industrial development: and 2) the
industrialization strategy and the underlying significance of the
relations between agriculture and industry for Ivorian economic
development.

Historically, as at present, the supreme importance of
agriculture in economic development in general and industrial
development in particular, especially in the first stages of
economic growth, is once again being demonstrated in the Ivorian
economic experience.

The primary sector, which includes agriculture narrowly
defined (livestock, fishing and forest products) can be divided
into two sub-sectors. 1) food agriculture, largely left to its
own devices; and 2) export agriculture, quite well organized by
the government. The relations that have historically existed
between these two sub-sectors can be described as 'conflictual',
because, during the process of economic growth, export
agriculture tends increasingly to deprive food agriculture of
those factors of production - land. Iabour and capital - that it
needs in order to attain national food self-sufficiency.4

Food agriculture

Clearly, agriculture's food production capacity plays a vital
role in all economic development and especially in that of
underdeveloped countries, because: 1) their people must be
decently fed so that, among other things, production in the
various sectors of the economy can be increased; 2) their people
must receive adequate incomes by providing them with jobs, in
this case in agriculture: 3) food agriculture must contribute to
the growth of other sectors, above all, by providing the
industrial sector with cheap labour, raw materials and sometimes,
financial surpluses.

Most countries in sub-Saharan Africa have largely failed to
grasp the key role of food agriculture in their development and,
therefore, fall increasingly victim to famine. Of course, in
common with many African countries5 in the Ivory Coast
too, there is a degree of malnutrition, but it has neither
experienced famine, nor attained total independence in food. And,
as its development proceeds, the imperative of the development of
food agriculture becomes more urgent, not only because of the
agricultural vocation of the country, but also because of the
rapid acceleration of demographic, urban and economic growth.
Since independence, the population, which includes many
foreigners, has increased by an average of 4% per annum;
urbanization at 10% per annum: and economic growth, in money
terms at 8% per annum. Nevertheless, until 1960. Ivorian peasants
engaged in food agriculture had, using only their traditional
tools (the daba and the cutlass), provided almost all the
staple foodstuffs except for rice, self-sufficiency in which has
not yet been attained.

It has been estimated6 that while the majority of
self-sufficiency ratios in various staple products (rice, maize
and other cereals, yams, cassava, plantains and taro) were
satisfactory in 1985, they will tend to fall dangerously by the
1990s. If, however, the authorities take appropriate measures
(currently being prepared) to halt this downward trend,
self-sufficiency in these staples would be attained and,
maintained, except for rice.

The production of animal proteins is less satisfactory. By
1986, self-sufficiency had been virtually achieved in poultry and
pig-meat production, and the government was attempting to improve
cattle, goat, and sheep production in order to enable the food
sub-sector to play its full role in this area for the future of
the economy and the industrial sector.

In addition to feeding the country's population, agriculture
as a whole contributes to general economic development by
providing jobs and incomes to rural workers- which thus makes it
possible to stimulate the growth of GDP. The agricultural sector
in the broad sense makes a considerable contribution to the
formation of GDP, and food agriculture's contribution is far from
insignificant: in 1980 it was virtually equivalent to half the
value of total production of the primary sector.7

In most countries' economic development relations between
agriculture and industry are marked by the reciprocal supply of
'factors' from agriculture to industry and from industry to
agriculture. These 'factors' include: food products, cheap
labour, raw materials to be processed and some financial surplus
derived from the food sub-sector. In the Ivory Coast, however,
every 'factor' supplied by food agriculture to industry comes not
only from internal sources, but, for example, animal products may
equally well come from neighbouring countries (Mali. Burkina
Faso, among others) as from Ivorian livestock.

The Ivorian food sub-sector supplies workers in industry with
all the tubers (yams, cassava, tarot sweet potatoes) and most
cereals (millet, sorghum, fonio and maize); only rice (half of
needs) and all the wheat are imported. With the new policy of
food self-sufficiency currently being put into effect, rice
imports are declining as national production rises, and there is
still hope of achieving self-sufficiency in rice by the 1990s.

Self-sufficiency in the supply of poultry and pig-meat already
achieved must be maintained and the production of a degree of
abundance to make exports possible should be attempted. For other
animal products (cattle, sheep and goats) including fish
products, the food sub-sector is largely dependent (about 50%) on
external sources.

Agricultural labour employed by Ivorian industrial enterprises
originates in both the food and the export agriculture
sub-sectors and comprises both Ivorian rural workers and those
from neighbouring countries such as Mali and Burkina Faso.8
The exodus of rural workers to Ivorian towns and industries is
due principally to a desire to en joy 'better working and living
conditions' in the urban centres, rather than, as is usually the
cause, lack of gainful employment in the countryside. As urban
centres are increasingly overburdened with those seeking
employment, and industries and services are unable to absorb them
all, food needs in the towns increase, along with potential
shortages of this or that foodstuff. (It should be noted that
while the growth rate in industrial jobs is around only 5% per
annum, urban growth has been 10% per annum and industrial growth
12% per annum.) Overall, the consequences of this rural exodus on
economic development, especially industrial development, while
stabilizing wages, and hence workers' purchasing power, reduces
food production in the countryside and, rather than reinforcing
the links between agriculture and industry, promotes economic and
social decay in the urban areas. In response to this the
government is considering a call for 'return of the youth to the
land', which it is hoped will both 'decongest' the urban areas
and step up agricultural production in the rural areas; and thus
lead to an increased supply of agricultural raw materials to
agro-industrial sector.

A scrutiny of agricultural supplies to industry shows that
those from export agriculture (to which we shall return below)
clearly exceed those from food agriculture. Food agriculture's
potential production is, however, far from exhausted and so far,
the quantities available are at times insufficient to satisfy
domestic demand. Some food products (all tubers except cassava
and all cereals except wheat) supply industrial raw materials for
initial processing only, since scientific and technical mastery
of stocking, canning and processing has not yet been achieved.
Progress is, however, being made: the cassava processing factory
at Toumodi seems to be a successful result of the much sought
after technical progress.

In short, interactions between food agriculture and industry
are by no means adequate. In order for food agricultural
production to contribute adequately to the country's economic and
social development a successful policy of food self-sufficiency
and scientific, technical and economic expertise in food
processing are essential.

Export agriculture

The Ivory Coast's development is still based on the strategic
role of cash crops such as coffee, cocoa, bananas and even
timber, which means not only that these products launched the
growth of the economy, by monetizing it, but also that the
incentive nature of their economic relations with food
agriculture and with industry and commerce underpins that growth.

The cash crop products (coffee, cocoa and timber) that have
formed the core of this development strategy were later
reinforced in their role by such secondary agricultural export
crops as bananas, pineapples and, post-1965, commercial crops
embarked upon by the crop diversification policy.

The agricultural sub-sector that produces the main export
crops (coffee, cocoa, timber) has to provide industry with
manpower, financial flows and raw materials for processing.

In order to contribute to the country's economic and
industrial development the food agriculture sub-sector is
fundamentally dependent on export agriculture in that, as the
economy develops, the food sub-sector provides factors of
production to the export sub-sector, in particular land and
labour, as well as food. In exchange, the food sub-sector
receives a financial return that contributes to its monetization
and integration into the national capitalist system. But, because
the economy undervalues and underpays the food sub-sector for
these factors of production - owing to the deterioration of
domestic trade terms and exorbitant levies extorted by commercial
middlemen - it generates little surplus, even for essential
self-financing.

But agricultural sub-sectors contribute to the transfer of
workers to the urban areas and their industries. It is the
economic and social consequences of a haphazard rural-urban move
that have led the Ivorian government to attempt to organize a
return of the youth to the land, in the hopes of establishing a
possible long-term rationalization of labour use both in the
rural and urban areas.

Cocoa, coffee and timber export earnings, for the economy in
general and industry in particular, have risen as follows: 1)
cocoa: from Francs CFA 226.6 billion in 1980 to 319.7 billion in
1983; 2) coffee: from Francs CFA 134.49 billion in l980 to l79.83
billion in l983;3) timber (logs and sawn): from Francs CFA 123.7
billion in 1980 to 96.9 billion in 1983. In total, the three
products have provided the Ivorian economy with export receipts
that have increased from Frances CFA 493.79 billion in 1980 to
496.43 billion in 1983.

A not insignificant proportion of these receipts - difficult
to estimate precisely - contributes to Ivorian industrial
development in the form of state shareholding in the 'social
capital' of state companies or mixed state-private companies,
state investments, the Stabilization Fund and investments by a
number of Ivorians including some big coffee and cocoa planters
and forest developers. Small Ivorian planters" participation
in the investments is indirect, through state levies (the
Stabilization Fund) on the international prices of coffee and
cocoa.

These three products also supply raw materials to the
industrial sector. The average percentage of unrousted coffee
processed is 5% per annum of total coffee sold, that of cocoa,
which is much larger, averages 25% per annum of total beans
marketed. But it must be noted that whereas coffee is completely
processed to the final product: Nescafé, cocoa beans undergo
only preliminary processing to obtain cocoa paste and cocoa
butter for export to the developed countries.

Crop diversification

The crop diversification policy, launched after 1965, was
intended to attain three essential objectives:9

(1) to reduce regional disparities, which had been aggravated
above all by the promotion of export crops in the southern forest
at the expense of the northern savanna locked into subsistence
production;

(2) to increase total export receipts, as the Ivory Coast is
increasingly confronted with the effects of climatic variations
and the deterioration of the terms of trade;

(3) to promote a dynamic agro-industrial sector, which would
have as its driving force the agricultural foodstuffs industries
and mainly use raw materials from local commercial crops.

The crop diversification policy led to the introduction of new
crops such as soya beans and cashew nuts, and to the transfer of
some crops from one region to another in order to improve the
quality and productivity of commercial crops already in
production: pineapples and rubber, amongst others. Finally, other
commercial crops were to play a vitally important role in the
economic development strategy and the struggle against regional
disparities: cotton in the north; and oil palm and coconuts in
the south.

In the north three crops were launched to enable the peoples of
the area to increase their monetary incomes: paddy rice,
sugar-cane and cotton.

The cultivation of seed cotton enabled the producers and the
various producing regions to procure not insignificant receipts,
as Table 7.1 A and B shows.

Table 7.1 A
Output and producer incomes

Season

Total
production (metric tons)

Prices per
kg (Francs CFA)

Total
producer incomes (million Francs CFA)

1980-81

136.603

80

10,928

1981-82

135.370

80

10,829

1982-83

156,981

80

12,559

1983-84

142.283

100

14.228

Table 7.1 B
Production by region
(metric tons)

Season

North

West

Centre

1980-81

62.136

43.604

30,863

1981-82

68.945

38.048

28,377

1982-83

69.476

48.507

38,999

1983-84

72.822

43,709

25,752

1983-84 value in million
Francs CFA

7.282.2

4,370.9

2,575.2

Source: Bulletin de l'Afrique Noire 1257, 24 January 1985,
p. 8.

Of total production of seed cotton, once ginned, 25% went to
local industries and 75% for export, the value of exports
increasing from 14,593 million CFA Francs in 1980 to 31,929 in
1983.10

In the south oil palm and coconuts play a key role in the
Ivory Coast's agro-industrial policy. The oil palm programme,
launched by the government in 1963, was entrusted to the
'Société pour le développement et l'exploitation du palmier à
l'huile' (Oil palm development and exploitation company) which
subsequently became a state company. Palmindustrie, with outside
participation. Major investments in the oil palm and coconut
programme, totalling 83.4 billion Francs CFA, were financed by
the Ivorian state, the World Bank, the EEC and a few smaller
bodies.11 In 1981-82 turnover reached 30 billion
Francs CFA, due to bringing large areas of oil palms and
coconuts into production.

This programme aimed to create industrial plantations with a
very high technical level, around which Palmindustrie would
develop and supervise village plantations to enable small
peasants to increase their money incomes. Also, the possibilities
of forage growing beneath the palms would be exploited

in order to carry on livestock farming. This programme made it
possible to bring large areas of land into cultivation: for oil
palms: 52,000 hectares of industrial plantations and 38.000
hectares of village plantations; and for coconut palms 19.000
hectares, and 10,000 hectares respectively.12 In Table
7.2A and B the respective productions of palm aggregates and
copra may be seen in context.